In Pictures: The must-have utilities for your iPad office

Editor's Choice: Must-have productivity iPad apps
Beyond the holy trinity of iPad office productivity apps -- those for textual documents, spreadsheets, and presentations -- are lots of iPad specialty apps. Some are so broadly useful that they should be on nearly everyone's business iPad. Our picks for those follow.

Best file manager: GoodReader 4
Many people really wish the iPad had a shared file system like a PC or Mac, but it doesn't. GoodReader 4 can give you much of the file manager you want. It provides a central file repository for files you transfer via Wi-Fi, various storage services, iTunes, and the Open In facility used by many iOS apps (such as Mail). GoodReader -- as its name implies -- also lets you read many file formats, including several not supported by iOS's naive Quick Look facility.

Best PDF markup: GoodReader 4
GoodReader didn't start as a PDF annotation tool, but it's evolved into a darned good one. You get the key markup and editing tools you expect from Acrobat Professional, and the app is good at using touch gestures for highlighting portions of your PDF for markup. Our only quibbles are that getting the markup menu back can be tricky, and you can't rotate individual pages, so sometimes you're marking up a page rotated 90 degrees from the orientation of the sticky note's text you're adding.
Note: The free Adobe Reader is good for simpler uses, and the $9.99 PDF Expert has a slightly cleaner interface.

Best mind-mapping tool: iThoughts
Mind-mapping is one of those terms that feels too touchy-feely for real business users, but it in fact is a valuable approach to connecting ideas to map out their relationships. That can help you discover unexpected connections, see gaps, and otherwise visualize a topic in useful ways. For mind-mapping, the iThoughts app does a great job of making it easy to create these visual connections and even annotate individual items with voice recordings.
App: iThoughts
Price: $9.99
Developer: ToketaWare
Compatibility: iPad and iPhone

Best diagramming tool: Grafio
If you want to create business diagrams -- flow charts, org charts, and the like -- Grafio is a great tool. It's very easy to use, and it will convert your finger's rough shapes into consistent, good-looking boxes, ellipses, and so on. No stylus needed! There's also a library of special shapes you can use, and the Connectors feature links objects to each other neatly and consistently. Plus, you can attach voice memos to your diagrams' objects. It's really powerful.
App: Grafio
Price: $8.99
Developer: Ten Touch
Compatibility: iPad and iPhone

Best note-taker (tie): Notability
Taking notes is a very personal activity, and dozens of apps for the iPad reflect all those preferences. But three such apps work well for most people. One is the iPad's built-in Notes app, which is great for typing in text-only notes and syncing them to your computer and other devices.
If you want notes that include audio recordings and drawings, you should also get Notability. It's straightforward to use and associates your recordings to what you type as you type; to hear the portion of a recording made when you typed in specific text, just tap that text. It works with iCloud and on iPhones.
App: Notability
Price: $4.99
Developer: Ginger Labs
Compatibility: iPad and iPhone

Best note-taker (tie): Evernote
Another note-taker you should consider is Evernote. It's a Web-based service that collects snippets of information -- more Post It-style notes than detailed meeting notes, though it can do those too -- and synchronizes all that info across your devices and computers. You can create buckets and move items around them, and you won't be as likely to lose them as you do all those scraps on your desk. For collaborative note-taking, Evernote offers several paid subscription options.
Microsoft OneNote is similar in many respects, but it's too complex for our taste.
App: Evernote
Price: $50/year Pro subscription
Developer: Evernote
Compatibility: iPad and iPhone

Best calculator: Calculator HD
Unlike the iPhone, the iPad doesn't come with a built-in calculator. There are many free ones, but I recommend paying the 99 cents for Calculator HD, which lets you copy results to other apps and paste numbers into it, as well as export a paper tape of your calculation's record.
App: Calculator HD
Price: $0.99
Developer: CrowdCafé
Compatibility: iPad

Best FTP client: FTP on the Go Pro
Cloud storage services have made FTP utilities archaic for many users, but if you work on a website or in many file-management systems, you still need a client. For the iPad, that client should be FTP on the Go. It not only does the FTP uploading and downloading you'd expect, but also provides a basic HTML editor so that you can touch up your Web pages.
App: FTP on the Go Pro
Price: $9.99
Developer: Headlight Software
Compatibility: iPad and iPhone

Best cloud storage (tie): Dropbox
Apple's iCloud is a great service for keeping files and other data synced across iOS and OS X devices, but until iOS 8 ships, it's not a storage service where you can keep files in a central location accessible to all devices and other users. Dropbox is such a service, and it's integrated with many iPad apps so it can fill in as a common file system in some cases. It also integrates nicely with OS X and Windows, appearing as another storage volume, and it's available for Android as well. Note that using Dropbox with Apple's iWork apps requires a $5 monthly fee.
App: Dropbox
Price: Charges for storage vary
Developer: Dropbox
Compatibility: iPad and iPhone

Best cloud storage (tie): Box
Box is back in our graces after dropping its CAPTCHA sign-in requirement that just didn't work on an iPad. Like Dropbox, it's a widely supported, popular cloud storage service that's also available for Windows, OS X, and Android. Note that using Box with Apple's iWork apps is possible through a WebDAV login.
App: Box
Price: Charges for storage vary
Developer: Box
Compatibility: iPad and iPhone

Runners-up for cloud storage: OneDrive and Drive
Although Google Drive is supported by many apps natively, it's a good idea to also have the client app for direct access to your files.
App: Google Drive
Price: Free, with a Google account
Developer: Google
Compatibility: iPad and iPhone
Microsoft's OneDrive app is the default storage location for Office 365, Windows 8, Office for iPad, and Office Web Apps, so it's essential for Microsoft users. Few apps support OneDrive natively, so you'll need to transfer files. The separate OneDrive for Business app that is often required for corporate Office 365 subscriptions.
App: OneDrive and OneDrive for Business
Price: Charges for storage vary
Developer: Microsoft
Compatibility: iPad and iPhone

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